James Ryan

Playwriting

James Ryan has written over 15 plays and a dozen screenplays. His work has been produced at Playwrights Horizons, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Circle Repertory Theatre, Act One in Los Angeles, The O'Neill Theatre Center, and Berkeley Stage Company, among other venues. He is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts; he has received a Drama League Award and a McKnight Fellowship. He has received residencies at Yaddo and the Millay Colony and commissions from South Coast Repertory Company and Actors Theatre of Louisville. Ryan has written screenplays for Disney and Warner Bros.' Spring Creek Productions, and recently completed an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's novel Found in the Street. He wrote and directed The Young Girl and the Monsoon, a feature film that had its world premiere at The Los Angeles Independent Film Festival; released by Artistic License Films in North America, it was also released on cable by Showtime, and on DVD by Vanguard International Video. The film won the Gold Medal, Jury Prize, and Best Screenplay Award at the Wine Country Film Festival, and the Best Actress Award at The American Film Institute's Los Angeles International Film Festival, and has been shown in Israel, France, and Cuba. For TV, he has written for Showtime, Lifetime, and ABC daytime television. He began his career as an actor, studying with Uta Hagen, and appeared in the films Five Corners, Falling in Love, and Joe vs. The Volcano. His plays are published by Dramatists Play Service, Samuel French, and Smith and Kraus. His book, Screenwriting from the Heart: The Technique of the Character-Centered Screenplay, is published by Billboard Books. He served as Chair of the Playwriting Department, Actors Studio Drama School, New School University, where he taught for nine years.